Montgomery College, Smithsonian Leaders
to Recognize
Student Interns and Faculty Fellows Involved in
Unique Partnership between the Community College and Smithsonian

Thursday,
Feb. 13, 20033-5 p.m.(Program and reception)

Smithsonian Castle Library1000
Jefferson Drive, S.W.
Washington, D.C.

Smithsonian
Secretary Lawrence M. Small will be joined by Montgomery College officials
in celebrating the unique partnership that exists between the Smithsonian
and the Maryland community college. Under the partnership, 10 Montgomery
College students each semester have an opportunity to do an internship
with the Smithsonian, working closely with a wide variety of museum
curators and other Smithsonian staff. In addition, faculty members from
the Maryland community college have the opportunity to participate in a
coveted Smithsonian summer fellowship program. Fellows use the vast and
unequaled collections both to further their own research projects and to
develop assignments that take their students into the museums where they
learn to “read” and interpret artifacts and exhibits. Thus, the MC college
classroom extends into the largest museum and research complex in the
world.

Montgomery College is the only community college in
America to have such a partnership with Smithsonian. Most colleges and
universities typically have the ability to send a maximum of one or two
students a semester to participate in the Smithsonian internship program.
MC interns have developed teaching tools for Discovery Theater, the Postal
Museum, and Imaginasia. They have also assisted curators at the National
Museum of American History, the National Museum of Natural History, and
the Hirschhorn Museum. Other have worked with the National Zoo, the Center
for Folklife Programs and Cultural History, and the Women’s Craft Show.
Students participating have included those majoring in art, photography,
history, music, computer science and other fields. The Smithsonian
partnership is one of the signature programs of Montgomery College’s Paul
Peck Humanities Institute, which was founded in part through a challenge
grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities and a substantial
private gift from Mr. Paul Peck, a longtime supporter of the Smithsonian,
and a variety of other arts and humanities programs.